OAKLAND — A DNA “cold-hit” has led to the arrest of a man suspected of kidnapping and raping an Oakland woman more than seven years ago.

Shane Henry, 38, of Oakland, was charged Tuesday for the Jan. 13, 1999, rape of a

28-year-old woman.

According to police, the woman was walking on San Leandro Street when a man “approached the woman from behind with two guns, forced her across the street, down a driveway and into a garage, where he raped her…”

Oakland police Officer Jesse Grant of the Special Victim’s Unit said the case was investigated until all the leads went cold. The investigator submitted evidence of the crime to the California DNA database, Grant said, but Henry’s DNA was not on file.

In the interim, Henry was convicted of a felony and sent to prison, where his DNA was collected and entered into the system, Grant said.

The California Department of Justice Laboratory notified Oakland investigators of the match and Oakland police discovered Henry had been released from prison, but had an outstanding warrant for an unrelated parole violation.

On June 9, officers Chris Moreno and Sven Hamilton located Henry in a park east of Lake Merritt and arrested him on the outstanding warrant.

Once Henry was in custody, Oakland investigators were able to revisit the rape case and gather additional evidence, which led to rape and kidnapping charges filed Aug. 1.

Grant said the woman has been contacted and made aware of the arrest.

The Oakland Police Department has come under scrutiny lately for a backlog of DNA evidence that had not been submitted to the state crime lab.

There have also been situations where the state had notified the police department of a “cold-hit” match, but the information was not followed up on. In one case, a registered sex offender who matched a cold-hit was not arrested for a year, during which time he molested a second child.

Since then, the city has included funding for three new crime lab technicians.

It appears those problems were not the case here. The delay was due to the fact that Henry had only recently been convicted of a felony and sent to prison, when a sample of his DNA was taken, Grant said.

Grant said the cold-hits are starting to happen with more frequency, leading to breaks in cases that wouldn’t have gotten solved before.

“It’s a unique and wonderful asset for us,” he said. “For something this serious, to have a breakthrough, it’s wonderful.”

Anyone with further information on the case is urged to call Officer Jesse Grant of the Special Victim’s Unit of the Oakland Police Department at 587-2514.